Diabolus Extremis
by pieterroeland
Summary: Deep within an Inquisitorial Fortress; a lone Interrogator must put his soul at risk to ascertain the immensity of a Daemonic force.


**Diabolus Extremis**

Interrogator Andreas rubbed his gumming eyes again. The flickering images from the array of pict screens before him had made his eyes weary and blood shot hours ago when he had first set upon his task.  
Now he reached for the glass beside him as he searched his breast pocket for the mild pain killers to dull the constant ache behind his eyes that had grown worse. Unfortunately the glass he found was empty and his mouth far too dry to work up the spit required the swallow his last pill. Instead, he chewed the pill, hoping that it would do some good.

He turned back to the screens and gave a sigh that was born of the weariness of performing a long and complicated task that was almost done, but still had a long way to go.  
He was to collate recovered data transmissions and recordings of a skirmish. While a skirmish itself was nothing new; this particular one was of import as it had resulted in the rescue of three ecclesiarchy members and the sacred tome of St. McGuffin.  
Normally, this task would have been an administrators job, however, the reason it was his task today, stared back at him on one of the screens.

Filling the screen, was an entity of pure repugnance. Rotting horns erupted from a bulbous, fleshy, fatty growth that could only be supposed as the things head that sat upon the creatures plague corpse bloated body. It was a living embodiment of disease and decay brought to unholy life. The most unsettling thing about the horror was not the rivers of puss and infection that ran over its engorged form. Nor was it that despite the pict being paused, the flesh of the creature still pulsed with the swarms of maggots that writhed and dripped from weeping sores- or that more than once he had used his personal lighter to burn a maggot that had fallen from that screen.

No, it was the daemons smile. The warm, welcoming smile that was so at odds with the monstrosity. Looking at it now made him uneasy and caused the pain behind his eyes to sharpen.  
Interrogator Andreas looked away from the screen and rubbed his eyes again. Not for the first time, his talents sensed a deep, sickening chuckle coming from the air near that screen and felt the air chill.

Taking a breath and uttering a litany of purification, Andreas turned back to the screens. He worked the controls of the board in front of him and the screens rolled back their recordings. All except one. The image of the grotesque daemon seemed content to watch him work.  
When the time stamps of his gathered recordings finally hit zero; Interrogator Andreas began to review his work.

_A severe looking woman looked out from the pict screen. She was garbed in the ornate robes and trappings of a senior Ecclesiarch, the age lines on her face told the story of the many years it takes for a priestess of the Imperial Cult to reach such an esteemed rank._

"_This is Abbess Drexia Jacoby..." she fumed into the screen; a scowl that had no doubt haunted a good many novices and choir children._

"_What fool has abandoned us?! Whoever is hearing this, by the Emperor, I demand you retrieve us this instant." There followed a lengthy string of sanctioned curses, directed at the commanders in charge of the evacuation of this particular sector._

"_We have retrieved the Book of Saint McGuffin. It cannot be allowed to fall to the arch enemy." Another string of curses, before a young woman entered the screen and relieved the Abbess of her unhelpful tirade._

_This woman, in stark comparison to the Abbess, was an image of beauty and serenity. She was garbed in the white robes of a Sister Hospitaller; the medical arm of the Adepta Sororitas. While a non-militant order, the power armour seen beneath the gaps of her robes signified her as a front-line hospitaller._

"_This is Sister Florence," she said in a sweet voice. She was much more collected than the Abbess; to be expected from a sister who was used to dodging bullets on the battlefield as she tended to the wounded faithful._

_She went on to explain that they had sought refuge in a shrine, and calmly related their coordinates. It had been the most helpful piece of information to come from the short transmission. Unfortunately, neither the Abbess nor the Hospitaller realised they were broadcasting on an unsecured channel._

_On another pict screen, Palatine Maya of the Order of the Penitent Spirit jostled about in a Repressor transport as it sped along. She stood out from the rest of her sisters, not only for her rank, but because where her sisters wore the purple armour and purple-red robes of their order; her armour and robes bore the red and black colours of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. It was part of a memorial tradition that had first started almost two millenia ago and was considered to be an honour within the order._

_Currently her hand was pressed to a vox bead in her ear; she uttered the occasional affirmation as she received news of her detachment's unexpected rescue mission._

_After uttering a final "Ave Imperator" into her vox, she relayed the new coordinates to the driver before opening the vox channel to her sisters in the Repressor, as well as those in the two Immolator Transports in her outrider convoy._

"_Sisters, it would appear the evacuation teams were a little hasty. A number of the Emperor's church have been left behind with a holy relic. We are to proceed, with all haste to evac these stranded souls._

"_Immolator teams, you are to proceed to the south eastern area of engagement and work towards the central shrine; delay any enemy forces you encounter as my team enters the engagement area centrally to extract the high value personell and the relic._

"_Emphasise that this is strictly a grab and dash mission. Do not be drawn into a prolonged fight. We will have air support to deal with any significant threats."_

_Palatine Maya braced herself amidst the acknowledgement tones she received as the Repressor and its accompanying Immolators turned down a narrow street; the roar of their engines and clacking of the vehicles tracks the only sound breaking the silence of the vacant city._

_Fittingly, on a pict screen high up; footage from an aircraft showed a small city scrolling past as it flew overhead. The footage was from an Avenger Strike Fighter; a close support gunship favoured by the Sororitas. This particular Avenger was more akin to a flying shrine than to an engine of war. It was decorated with angelic sculptures and saints inlaid with gold plating. For all its ostentatiousness, it still bared its teeth with the large rotating Bolt Cannon which the aircraft was built around, and bristled with missiles. Where others of its make bore paired las-cannons; this craft had had such weaponry removed in place for twin Multi Meltas._

_The pilot signalled acknowledgement of her new mission orders. The aircraft banked and took a course deeper into the city._

_In the shrine, a priest called out as he gazed at a collection of screens above a security console._

"_Theyre coming. The Sisters are coming," he said as the Abbess made her way to glare at the exterior security picts._

"_The Emperor is with us; we're saved." Relief plain in his voice._

"_They're not alone. The arch enemy has arrived." the Abbess said, as she indicated several screens. Indistinct shapes moved with hulking unnatural forms on some of the screens. Other screens showed bloated, armoured figures marching towards the shrine. One screen centered on a twisted, walking machine form with grotesque arms growing out one side, bristling with an array of weaponry. It sat upon a landing pad opposite the shrine, the barrels of that weapon arm leveling upon the holy site._

_The priest could be seen to panic quite plainly; his chest heaving as he began to lose control of his breath. He soon stopped however as he caught sight of something on the control panel before him._

"_The Emperor protects those that protect themselves." he said with renewed confidence as he pressed a button on the panel._

_A harsh, mechanized voice blared out from the laud hailers a few moments later._

"_Automated Defence Network Activation."_

_Moments later, the thud-thud-thud of heavy weaponry sounded through the room. A screen showed tracer fire of heavy bolters firing into the advancing armoured bodies. The shots struck true, but deflected off the tainted armour or struck armour joints, blowing out infected gobbets of flesh but having little effect to the enemy._

_A las blast narrowly missed the twisted monstrosity on the landing pad._

"_Good thinking, Friar. The defences shall bide us time as the sisterhood speeds to our rescue and the enemy's demise." the Abbess gave what must have been rare praise._

"_Why are the defences firing upon my sisters?" the Hospitaller demanded as she pointed at a screen showing a quad-gun emplacement firing upon an Immolator transport. The armour of the vehicle held, but the sisters eyes were afire._

"_It-it...it must be set to fire upon anything that moves?" the Priest spluttered._

"_Then set it to target only the enemy!" the Abbess demanded._

"_I don't know how. Sister, you'd know." said the Priest._

"_Throne, Friar. I'm a Hospitaller, not a tech-priest," Sister Florence snapped. "deactivate it now."_

"_I've tried, nothing is working," the Priest said as he began pounding his fists into every blinking light and button he could find._

_The condition of the city around began to change as the convoy rode deeper. No buildings had suffered direct damage from enemy artillery fire yet; but that was not for a lack of trying on the enemy's part. Buildings here had been made sturdy, able to withstand a great deal of punishment. While a number of the buildings showed scorch and stress marks from direct hits; most artillery damage had been done to the streets themselves, leaving great craters in the middle of the streets and smoking wreckage of abandoned civilian transports._

_A few minutes after Palatine Maya had ordered the Immolator transports off to their sectors, her Repressor came upon the ruins of a small chapel that had not survived a direct hit. The Repressor slowly made its way through the ruins; smoking debris and flaming pews snapped and smashed under the vehicles treads as it passed flame blackened walls, the artworks of saints and angels that had covered those walls, lost._

_As they came upon the outskirts of the ruin, the Shrine that the Ecclesiarchy members sought refuge in loomed into view on the external cams of the Repressor._

_It towered above all other buildings around it. It's upper levels showing stained glass windows depicting images of the Saint McGuffin. On the lower levels, the barrels of Heavy Bolters protruded from the walls._

"_Avenger to Outrider Maya." the pilots voice cut in suddenly. "Avenger on station to provide close range air to ground support._

"_Acknowledged, Avenger. Slow the arch enemy's advance and intercept pursuers while we retrieve the-"_

"_Sister Palatine, we are under fire from friendly automated defences."_

_The Avenger zoomed past the ruin of a chapel. This area had clearly seen heavier artillery bombardment. The plumes of black smoke and fire rose from the streets where vehicles and even defensive gun emplacements blazed away in their wreckage._

_The Bolt Cannon whirred to life as the pilot picked out several infantry targets through a smoke plume ahead. She picked out more targets on a landing pad- a walking thing of twisted metal and a stout, mushroom like thing covered in rust. The pilot let loose with the cannons and sent missiles and multi melta fire into the larger threats at the rear. She saw some of the infantry vanish in a cloud of yellow-green mist as the bolt shots ripped into the armoured troops and exploded._

_A heartbeat later, the cockpit blared with signals, warning of weapons lock. Out of instinct, the pilot sent the aircraft jinking as a nearby building, brimming with defensive weapons, opened fire at near point blank range._

_The aircraft was fast and the pilot clearly skilled, but several shots still struck true. Worst of all was a las cannon emplacement in the street that struck a glancing blow that nearly knocked the aircraft into the offending building._

_Recovering, the pilot swung around southward. In a moment, she took in the sight she had seen a heart beat ago from a different angle. Though now, there was a huge mass of diseased flesh half as tall as the shrine, bearing down on it._

_Amidst a hail of fire from the enemy; the Bolt Cannons fired into the armoured infantry again and more melta shots lanced into the twisted metal walker which flung its own powerful weaponry at the Avenger. Somehow, the pilot managed to avoid most of the high powered shots while managing to fire off a quick salvo of Hellstrike missiles into the rotten pile of walking flesh by the Shrine. But its was too much._

_A beam of melta energy speared up from the impossibly surviving infantry that sliced through the aircrafts hull and struck the volatile payload within._

_The Avenger exploded mid air and came crashing down in a ball of fire upon the landing pad; debris slammed into the vile machines that had claimed sanctuary upon it._

_On another pict screen; the external cam of an Immolator showed the pile of flesh receiving the final shots of the ill fated aircraft. Great gobbets of rotten flesh and puss boiled away. The image of the horned daemon began to fill the screen as it looked directly at the Immolator. And smiled._

Interrogator Andreas broke from his work again, rubbing his temples. Around him, wards carved into the cold, black stone walls designed to contain psychic influence, began to subtly glow.

Wearily, the interrogator resumed his work.

_The second Immolator's pict screen caught the flash of sudden movement. Something that was there, but not there, charging towards the vehicle. Nothing could be made distinctly of until until its powerful blows hammered against the vehicle. The Sister on the Immolation Flamer doused the non-entities in streams of burning promethium. The burning liquid gave shape to what the human and the recorded eye could not give form._

_Hulking beasts lumbered around the vehicle, dripping with disease and flame as burning flesh sleuthed off their daemonic forms. They assailed the vehicle with massive arms of claws and heads of flailing tentacles ending with razor teethed mouths._

_The sisters within disembarked as the monstrous mountain of diseased flesh by the Shrine lumbered toward the other Immolator. The daemon loped alone in great rolling strides; not slowed by a lascannon beam burning straight through its gluttonous form from one of the automated defences._

_The daemon cried in delighted glee, adding to the cacaphonous noise of the battle, as it slammed into the transport._

_The daemons decayed sword narrowly missed one of the sisters within the transport as it pierced through the hull like nothing._

"_Withdraw! Withdraw! Everyone out." the sister superior cried out. The rear ramp opened up and the sisters piled out, regrouping with the squad from the second Immolator. The beleagured Immolator was held in place as much by the daemons weapon as its bulk that spilled over it._

"_In the Emperors name; destroy the abomination!" the superiors cry came and the squads opened up on the monstrosity in unison with holy melta, flamer and bolter. The daemon turned under the fuscillade; flame coiled up its bloated form, bolt shells blew out chunks of green diseased flesh and melta shots speared into its unnatural form. It withdrew its blade from the struggling Immolator and took a heaving step towards the sisters._

_In the Repressor, Palatine Maya stood with her sisters at the vehicle's firing ports. The Repressor rounded the Shrine to come up behind the faltering daemon._

_Then Maya and her sisters added their weight of fire upon the daemons back. The Repressor unleashed its own torrents from its heavy flamers. Even the injured Immolator, reversing away with rust spreading out from its wounds, managed to unleash jets of fire from its Immolation Flamers; the sister in the gunners seat managing to hold the fire trigger down as she nursed a wound to her gut that was already festering._

_Assailed from all sides, the daemon slowly began to lose its form. It unleashed a frustrated howl as the combined fire destroyed it piece by piece._

_Finally, with an enraged sucking howl, it fell forwards. It burst into a tide of sickening green sludge._

"_Into the Shrine," called Maya to her team. _

Pain seared through Interrogator Andreas' mind. Raw and unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. His mouth open in a silent scream as he pressed his fists against his eyes. He didn't feel the tears of blood streaking down his face from his weeping eyes and nose. Nor did he see the wards around the room now glaring with blue-white brightness, some even bursting into cold fire and filling the dark room with harsh light.  
His world right now was one of immense pain. And fear.

He had taken the proper precautions. Steeled his will and set up the appropriate psychic barriers and more beside.  
Yet he was so completely unprepared for the sheer, raw power that he felt clawing at his soul. Desperately, he called upon his psychic talents, throwing up shields and walls in his mind, anything to slow the evil force that sought to consume him from within. It was the psychic equivalent of a desperate man toppling shelves and chairs as he ran in an effort to slow his pursuers.

The cold air began to stink. A fecund bouquet of decay; rotting meat, pungent fungus, decomposing bio matter and gangrene.  
Andreas' shielded soul was hit by a psychic force so powerful, it physically knocked him back in his chair which toppled over, sending him rolling onto his back. For the first time since the psychic onslaught began, he breathed, and immediately vomited.

One by one, the pict screens the interrogator had been sitting before began showing the image of the daemon until its monstrous form filled each one.

"Embrace..."

A deep, gurgling, unnatural voice. Andreas both heard it in the air and felt the words press against his mind.

"The blessings...of the grandfather..."

The voice was full of such malice, yet it conveyed such genuine, welcome invitation. The duality of it made the interrogators skin crawl.  
All of his psychic focus was thrown to defending himself from the attack. The pain of it landing through his mind was rendering him immobile. He knew if he didn't do something, he was going to die- if he was lucky, that's all that would happen. It was the possibility of that worse thing that spurned him to find that reservoir of strength that does not belong to himself or to any natural human.

"Im-Imperat-tor..." It was the only word his beleaguered thoughts could muster. It was enough.

With immense effort, Andreas dragged a fist from his eyes. He fought his own muscles that sought to instinctively clench that fist back over his eyes.  
Painfully, he managed to drag his fist to the com bead in his ear. He pressed in on it, activation the send.  
He had always imagined in this sort of situation, he would be calm and collected and convey a sense if cool authority as he called for reinforcements. Instead, all he could manage was a weak, gurgling...

"...help..."

That amused, sickening chuckle filled the air again.  
Amidst his fear and pain, a small flame of hate flickered in his heart at the sound of that chuckle. He held onto that small flame. Used it to open his uncovered eye.

The screens no longer showed individual picts of the daemon. Instead they all worked together to show it in one massive image; it's huge, rotten smile growing ever wider. Maggots and flies crawled and flew out if the screens that began to rust. Decay spread out across the consoles in long fingers. Metal rusted in moments and plastics flaked away. Frozen rime spread across the black bricks of the walls, floor and ceiling. The foul stench filling the air intensified and the interrogator retched.

The daemons chuckle was suddenly turned to a disappointed sigh. The sound one might make when an enjoyed game is brought to an unwelcome end.  
A strong armoured hand grabbed Andreas' coat collar and began dragging him back along the floor, out the now open heavy metal door into a well lit black brick corridor, wards aglow near the vacated room.  
He coughed and retched before vomiting again, rolling onto his side as a Battle Sister with a heavy flamer stepped past him to the door and began filling the room with holy fire.

The pict screens exploded under the sustained torrent; their casings melting away. Everything in the room burned. The sister did not let up on her cleansing until burning promethium began to pool around her feet as it overflowed from the tainted room.  
By then, the psychic assault that had so nearly ended him stopped, but not without one final "Embrace..."

The interrogator sat himself up against the wall, coughing and wheezing as he did so.

"Interrogator?" a familiar voice rumbled. Andreas turned to see his master, clad in golden power armour, nearby.

"Lord..." he managed to say after several failed attempts.

"It is Diabolus Extremis." the dark, gold armoured man said, wanting his confirmation but seeing his interrogator was obviously in no condition to hold a conversation.

Andreas nodded in confirmation before a bought of coughing doubled him over.

"Medicae."

It was the last thing the interrogator heard before darkness started to take the world around him. The last thing he saw before it took him too, was his hand full of the blood he had coughed up.


End file.
